New 3-part documentary on the movie's production and
legacy – for the first time, relive the actual
on-set filming of classic scenes via
never-before-seen set footage: Raising Hell: Filming
The Exorcist, The Exorcist Locations: Georgetown
Then and Now and Faces of Evil: The Different
Versions of The Exorcist

Feature-length 1998 documentary The Fear of God:
The Making of The Exorcist

Interview gallery covering the topics: the
original cut, the final reckoning and stairway to
heaven

Original ending and more

Movie: Discs:

Few
films have retained their ability to horrify us quite the way The
Exorcist has . . .

I recall the first time I saw it in theaters, during the 2000 re-release
with the new, expanded footage. The theater was full of smug, snickering
young people: raised on a diet of sub-par slasher films and expecting a few
retro-jolts with which they could goose their dates. They staggered into the
lobby afterwards like survivors of the Battle of Verdun: faces ashen, hands
trembling, mouths struggling to come up with some quip or snarky remark that
could dispel the dread coiled in the pit of their stomach. One young woman
collapsed on the floor in hysterics, her boyfriend standing mutely beside
her with no words of comfort.

Such is the power of this movie: it gets us where we sleep and never lets us
go.

Its power lies in the slow and gradual way it pulls us in,
coupled with director William Friedkin’s ability to render every aspect
utterly plausible. But for the opening title, we wouldn’t even be able to
pinpoint it as a horror movie . . . at least at first.

A nice lady (Ellen Burstyn) living in a very normal
Georgetown house has an adorable little girl (Linda Blair) who begins acting
oddly. The lady takes her to doctors. She takes her to psychiatrists. She
takes her to the smartest people in the world. They all explain that they
can help her, that she’s experiencing nothing out of the ordinary, that all
she needs is this cure or that cure or that other cure which really should
work. And all the time, the girl grows worse and worse and worse… until a
room full of the most learned experts in the neurological field stammeringly
explain that perhaps she needs help of a much older kind.

For all the shocking elements on display, that slow,
gradual progression gives the film its real strength. We fall under its
spell so quietly that we’re hardly aware of what we’re seeing, right up
until the moment when the pea soup starts flying. Friedkin’s masterful
pacing bolsters the presence of utterly believable characters: Burstyn’s
frazzled movie star, Blair’s adorable innocent (and unmitigated fiend),
Jason Miller’s doubting priest, and Max von Sydow’s titular exorcist: his
aging body held up by sheer steely determination.

They all come together in that infamous bedroom, products
of a rational world faced with the inexplicable. Despite its overtly
Catholic overtones, The Exorcist offers no clear answers to what
happens: not for us and not for the figures onscreen. We can’t even be sure
that the grinning thing behind Blair’s eyes is really the Devil, or if the
finale constitutes defeat or victory. Within that mystery lies the roots of
its paralytic fear: the sort that thirty-five years of pop culture
deconstruction has been unable to dent. No matter how many Saturday Night
Live parodies they shovel at us, we still get the shakes every time we see
it. The more grotesque moments rise above the knee-jerk shocks of Eli Roth
and his ilk because they have genuine thought behind them: both Friedkin and
writer William Peter Blatty steep the story in real theology even as they
plunge us straight into the abyss.

That very grounding, combined with the film’s other
elements, further allows it to transcend the confines of the genre. For all
of its terrifying reminders of how little we know about the universe—and
about how true evil can appear in the most mundane locations—it never give
in to despair. For if the Devil truly exists in the world, then God must
too. The Exorcist entertains that comforting notion at all times,
allowing it to flourish while neither confirming or denying its influence
over the proceedings. If horror movies constitute a distillation of the
basic struggle of good vs. evil, The Exorcist delivers it in the most
profound way: inviting us to meditate on the universe around us while still
scaring the pants off of us at every turn. Few other efforts can stake such
a claim. Then again, if they could, then this wouldn’t be the greatest
horror movie ever made.

THE DISCS: Warners gave this the special treatment,
with a two-disc set bound in a handsome book-style casing and joined by a
24-page booklet filled with images of the cast and crew. The first disc
contains the re-released “director’s cut” with new footage, while the second
disc holds the original 1973 version. The former remains a lesser effort,
despite a few prize moments like Blair’s infamous “spider walk” down the
stairs. In addition to the films themselves, Disc 1 contains a new
documentary covering the film and audio commentary from Friedkin. Disc 2
contains two audio commentaries—one from Blatty and one from Friedkin—along
with an earlier 1998 documentary, a series of interviews from the cast and
crew, and an introduction from Friedkin. The extra goodies are all solid,
but the film itself remains the primary draw: looking strong (though a
little grainy) in the new format.

WORTH IT? Horror fans dare not let it pass, and any
serious lover of cinema needs to find a place for it in his or her
collection.

RECOMMENDATION: Provided you don’t scare easily,
The Exorcist constitutes a Halloween treat like no other.